How does the Contact Point for Cross-Border Healthcare develop services for people seeking treatment abroad?

Seeking treatment abroad refers to travelling abroad for the express purpose of receiving medical treatment. Instances such as sudden illnesses or accidents during a holiday trip do not constitute seeking treatment. Customers can seek treatment abroad either independently without a prior authorisation or apply for a prior authorisation from Kela.

The purpose of collecting information was to find out, among other things, why customers seek treatment abroad and how we at the Contact Point can best help them in this process. We started by compiling customer data that was already available at the Contact Point, including website visitor data, customer service statistics and social media analytics. Based on the data available, we created the most typical user profiles.

“The collection of existing data was a good starting point as it encouraged the whole team to think about what kind of information and understanding we already had about people seeking treatment abroad,” says Mira Rantakeisu, Expert at the Contact Point

Expert workshops on customer profiles and pathways

We continued the collection of information in expert workshops, where we looked at the typical types of people seeking treatment and the situations in which people seek treatment abroad. Based on these, we identified customers’ information needs, the challenges they face and their service needs. The customer profiles identified were people seeking non-urgent medical care, people seeking specialised medical care and people with a previous care relationship abroad. Among the customers seeking specialised medical care, there were also customers seeking urgent medical care abroad.

Some of the reasons for seeking treatment abroad included previous contacts abroad or problems in accessing treatment in Finland. The lower cost and quality criteria of treatment abroad were also factors that attracted people to seek treatment abroad.

We identified pain points in seeking treatment in three different phases: the investigation phase, accessing treatment and claiming for reimbursement. Challenges identified in the investigation phase included the lack of information and understanding of the information as well as the uncertainty about the reimbursement of treatment and the stage at which a prior authorisation should be applied for. Customers seeking treatment may also have pre-existing medical conditions that can make it difficult to find things out.

Workshops as a basis for the next steps in collecting information

The workshops also gave us the opportunity to brainstorm ways in which we at the Contact Point could best help our customers to seek treatment. Communication is key to reaching our customers, regardless of why they are seeking treatment abroad. It is important that we are present on the channels that are essential for our customers, such as social media and search engine searches. The information aimed at customers must be clear, and the service pathway must be as straightforward and efficient as possible. The Contact Point can act as a compass for customers and guide them to seek further information, for example, from other contact points in the EU and the EEA countries.

The workshops gave us a good basis for customer understanding work and information collection. The next part of the article series will describe the other ways in which we collected information on people seeking treatment abroad.